the house had two bills that collectively can avert the entire fiscal cliff if enacted. those bills await action by the senate. >> the classic ping pong gridlock and no way out. >> it's important to know how far we have come in the last seven days. a week ago we were closer than we had seen before on a particular deal. john boehner made a big concession allowing tax cuts to rise on income over a million dollars. president obama countered with a big concession and saying that that should be $400,000 and have fixes to social security on costs of living adjustments on that. what ended up happening? john boehner retreated their plan b that mike viquiera was talking about that was unable to pass and now we are in the stalemate we are in now. we were closer than before. >> you touch on a good point. that's lost now in the media. we are going-over the cliff. last week they are $450 billion away from a deal. that's less than 1% of the federal spending over the next decade. in d.c. terms, 400 billion seems like a lot. that's a drop in the bucket in d.c. terms. it's amazing that s